


Signal

by gardnerhill



Series: 221b Ficlets by Gardnerhill [12]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (1984 TV), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Assisted Suicide, M/M, Retirement, Retirementlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-20
Updated: 2014-04-20
Packaged: 2018-01-20 04:23:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1496527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They don’t need words to speak to each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Signal

Watson had stopped eating two days earlier; he vomited the little water he took. Every breath was punctuated with a tiny sound of pain which he tried to suppress; eighty-seven, and the man faced down the invading cancer the way he’d dealt with his war wound.

As Holmes prepared his morphine injection, he looked, as he did every day. Their lives had been entwined for so long that Watson’s lost vocal cords were no barrier to communication. For one particular communique Holmes had been waiting since the surgery and the consultation with the stone-faced physician. Always before it had been _no_ , that look in Watson’s eyes, and at that look Holmes would nod and then deliver his husband’s regular dose.

The look had changed, and was unmistakable despite the trickle of pain-tears further dehydrating the dying man. _Yes_.

Holmes nodded, as he did every morning. As he did every morning, he smoothed back the thin white strands still bravely straddling Watson’s scalp and kissed his forehead. As he did every morning, he pierced the bottle and withdrew the syringe plunger. This morning he drew it all the way back, for the first time.

And twenty minutes later, his companion of six decades cooling beside him, for the second and last time Sherlock Holmes drew the syringe plunger all the way back.


End file.
